Marjoe Gortner

**Marjoe Gortner** — born *Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner* on **January 14, 1944** in Long Beach, California—emerged as one of the most sensational child evangelists of the twentieth century. His parents, veteran revivalist Vernon Robert Gortner and his exuberant wife Marge, recognized his uncanny ability to mimic adult preachers and, at the age of four, orchestrated a public ordination that thrust the boy into national headlines. Photographers from *Life* and *Paramount* captured his marriage ceremony, and by the early 1950s he was touring the United States with his family, delivering fiery sermons that combined dramatic gestures with a prodigious gift for storytelling. The money amassed by the itinerant revival circuit—estimated at three million dollars by the time he was sixteen—funded a lavish lifestyle, but the eventual disappearance of his father with the funds sparked a deep‑seated crisis. In his teenage years Gortner turned to the beatnik scene, and by the late‑1960s he began questioning the ethics of his childhood vocation, ultimately confessing that his sermons were built on fabricated visions and the sale of “holy” trinkets.

The revelation of his double life became the centerpiece of the Academy‑Award‑winning documentary **_Marjoe_** (1972), which exposed the inner workings of Pentecostal preaching and cemented his place in popular culture. Leveraging that notoriety, Gortner launched a diversified entertainment career: he recorded the rock‑inflected album *Bad but Not Evil* (1972), starred in B‑movies such as *Starcrash* (1978) and *The Food of the Gods* (1976), and made guest appearances on television series like *Kojak*, *Airwolf*, and *Falcon Crest*. His later work included hosting the short‑lived reality series *Speak Up, America* and performing in circus specials. Despite periods of personal turmoil—including multiple marriages to Carol Joan Raney, Virginia Humphreys, Agnes Benjamin, Candy Clark, and Susan Magestro—Gortner has remained a compelling figure whose early fame and subsequent self‑examination continue to intrigue scholars of religion and media alike.